Running with Stuffies

I used to have Dignity...a certain gravitas and seriousness when I entered the room.  I worked hard.  I played to win.  I dove into deep conversations about the nature of existence and grappled with God's work in our lives. 

Then I had children.

I found myself playing with my two year old a couple of days ago.  Playing, in this case, meant running up and down our hallway in a convoluted game of chase/tag/giggle while I carried my daughter's Care Bear Stuffy Friends with a large metal bowl on my head and chirped, "We're running! We're running! Oooh, we're running!" in a melodic falsetto.  Stuffies, in case you have no children in your life, are stuffed animals that are soft and cuddly and never leave your house once they enter.  They come in all shapes and sizes and my daughter loves every single one of them more than life itself...until she doesn't (2 year olds are fickle)...but she might love them again tomorrow, so they need to be accessible and available. 

How did I get here?  How did I go from dignified and intense to a master of the ridiculous who cannot remember my grocery list but can give you a dissertation of the merits of season 3 of Curious George versus Thomas the Tank Engine's original run?

Kids.  They have totally warped me and reshaped my existence.  I laugh more, I cry more, I worry more, I celebrate more...I care more about these little people than I ever used to care about anything before.  I can't shut the transformation off, either.  Everywhere I go, I am a dad.  The playground is a place to watch for injuries and imagine which kid would enjoy which element the most.  The sidewalk is no longer a patch of concrete leading to the Farmer's Market, it is a small stretch of sanctuary that runs perilously close to the roaring deathtrap that is the road.  Movies, video games, books, comic strips, facebook feeds, and television shows are all run through the "Is this appropriate for the kids?" filter.  My faith has been reshaped as much as anything else.

God is described over and over again as a father in the Bible with humanity as His children.  His anger over his kids doing stupid things over and over again makes so much more sense now.  His willingness to sacrifice himself for His children is now a no-brainer.  When you read Scripture as a parent, you see God's heartfelt struggle over His kids.  You see His love for them, His desire for them to mature into happy, healthy and well-adjusted men and women.  You see Him patiently correcting them over and over as they forget to shower again...oops, that part is mine.  Personally, I think thunder is God slapping His forehead over some particularly dumb thing that we are doing down here.  I have understood more about God by being a parent than I ever did before...including Divine Play.


God plays with His kids.  Just like I run through the house with stuffies in my arms and bowls on my head, I think God sets up the world with things for his children to play with.  He marvels with the builders at what they can create with their legos.  He burrows down with the readers as they explore new worlds through books.  He laughs with the athletes as they run and swim and throw and compete.  And then there are His children who are into extreme sports like skateboarding and biking.  They are happiest when they are pushing their bodies past their known limits.  They are most content when they are battered and bruised and sweaty and sore, having pushed through internal and external obstacles to achieve some new trick or stunt.  For them, the Father creates settings like Joel's Place and smiles as they fly.